


Running The Zodiac

by RuthlesslyEfficient



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry in the Speed Force, F/M, Missing Scene(s), Post-S3 Finale, Pretty much everybody else is an illusion, barry-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 19:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14575683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuthlesslyEfficient/pseuds/RuthlesslyEfficient
Summary: "He was running, running, running. He could not stop, could not ever slow down. I did this, he thought to himself, though he could no entirely longer remember what 'this' was. This is my fault."What happened to Barry in the Speed Force prison.





	Running The Zodiac

The Speed Force, again, showed itself to Barry as his childhood home: the place where he had loved so much, lost so much. But he didn't notice at first exactly where he was, too distracted by the weight of what he had just done.

He had walked away from Iris. Walked away from her forever. He would never, ever see her again.

Barry's breath started coming quick, too quick and too uncontrolled. Oh god. Oh, god, what had he done? He had left her. He'd left her behind. He would never see her again. He would never see any of them ever again. Oh, god. His vision began to smudge at the edges.

"Breathe, Barry," the Speed Force instructed him in his mother's voice, calm and soothing like she had always been when he was afraid of the dark. "Breathe."

He squeezed his eyes shut and listened to her, let himself pretend for just a moment that he was still a little boy, back in his bed. He imagined the warmth of his mother's hands brushing against his face as she pulled up his covers, the soft press of her lips to his forehead.

Finally, when he regained control of his breathing and looked around, he realized he again stood in the bedroom where his mother had last tucked him in, where he had watched the water in his fish tank defy gravity in a way that was mesmerizing and terrible.

"This is cruel," he said aloud, wiping the last of his tears from his face, but the Speed Force avatar had vanished into thin air and he was alone. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or angry.

Barry walked through the rooms of the house, trailing fingers over the walls, a lamp shade, a framed photograph, a wooden side table. It was not real. Or perhaps it was, but not really real.

He sank down on the couch and took a moment to get his thoughts in order. He glanced at his watch. It had stopped ticking. He had been gone from Iris perhaps an hour, if his estimation of his panic attack was correct.

An idea pinged in his mind. He reached into his pocket and fished out his phone. It still had battery, but no reception. Its clock was changing constantly: 12:36, 4:54, 7:09 within a matter of seconds. He could still access his photo gallery. He would look at photos of his family, his Iris, memorize every tiny detail so that he could keep them with him.

The first thing he saw in the gallery made his brows furrow. The thumbnail showed it was a video of Iris, but he didn't remember taking it. He tapped on it and flipped his phone to the side so the image would take up the whole screen. Iris appeared before him, smiling though her eyes were sad. He recognized their headboard behind her. He recognized her pajamas. He inhaled sharply as he realized she must have recorded it the morning of the day she was supposed to die.

"Hi, Barry," Iris said.

"Hi, Iris," he murmured in response.

Tears welled in his eyes again as he listened to her recite her vows. He opened his mouth to say them himself, but then closed it. He didn't deserve it, not after leaving her.

He was a fool, he damned himself, a fool. He should have married her weeks ago - the second they settled things between them. He should have sped them straight to the courthouse. Why had he waited even one second? But then, he kept making that mistake with Iris, didn't he? Waiting too long. For a guy who could go back and do the day over again, he sure had shitty timing.

\---

Barry sat on the real-and-not-real couch, staring at pictures and videos for so long that his eyes ached, until the Speed Force appeared.

It still looked like his mother, coming through the dining room where she had died.

"Hello, Barry," it said.

He nodded at it, then looked around.

"So what now?" he asked it.

_Do I watch my mom and dad die over and over again, here in this place that looks like where I wept over them? Or do I just sit here, all alone, for the rest of eternity? What will my hell look like?_

The Speed Force smiled sadly at him, making his mother's eyes gentle.

"Now," it said, "you do what you were born to do."

Barry new it meant running, but in this, he thought, it was wrong. That was not his purpose.

He stood up anyway. It nodded at him, and he took off.

\---

"I'm going to show you, Barry," it said in his ear.

_Show me what?_

"Your life. The life you won't be there for."

\---

He flashed through his life, and yet somehow it followed him, giving him the odd sensation of running on a treadmill while the world moved around him. He saw the moments, saw himself in them and yet removed, the dreamlike state of being someone and at once not.

His mother, lying on the floor, dying. Resting his head against her shoulder.

"Dad and I are both OK. We're going to be fine."

A tall man with dark, kind eyes on whom he'd relied so much for so long.

"No, thank you, I'm not hungry."

A woman whose name he could no longer remember but whom he desperately wanted to hold. A rush of joy at seeing her, a stab of pain as he remembered she was only an illusion. Her eyes shining as she looked at him. So close and yet so profoundly out of his reach. The press of her head to his shoulder.

"I don't know what I would do if this is all that's left of you. If this is all that's left of the amazing man that I know and love. Please come back to me."

A blurry black and white image on a screen, the woman he loved staring, her hand clutching his. Shock and overwhelming joy.

"We're gonna need more diapers."

A girl, so like her mother, yellow and purple as she flew alongside him. A code in a journal.

"Nora shouldn't be here."

\---

He was running, running, running. He could not stop, could not ever slow down. Faster and faster through the constellation of his life. The pattern of stars singing as they streaked past, shining, melting like ice cream and raining around him, draining away so he could never touch them.

He had left his suit jacket far, far behind. His shoes had long since worn away to nothing. His tie had torn away. His shirt and pants were in tatters. It did not matter. Nothing mattered but the pumping of his arms and his legs; the lightning in his wake; the beautiful, nameless-but-named woman he would never hold again; the children who would never be his.

 _I did this,_ he thought to himself, though he could no entirely longer remember what 'this' was. _This is my fault._

The Speed Force had called this his finish line, but that wasn't true, was it? It was really just a new track. How many times had he circled it?

"Run," it told him in something closer to a sensation than a language. "Run, my sweet boy."

Surely he had been running a thousand years. A million. Forever.

He was so tired.

'Run, Barry. Run.'

_Who?_

\-----

An odd, bright light. It had been so long since he'd seen anything but the replay of his life that it startled him. A small, red, spherical object streaked past his head. Lightning cracked behind him, but it was not his.

Instinct drew him toward the growing blob of light and wind. He veered off the track of life and through it.

The constellation around him was gray and yellow and white and green. It was not moving. Or maybe it was and he was simply moving faster. He must be free, though that was impossible. Stop. Stop.

A blue rectangle. Red spheres like the one that had flown by his head.

He screeched to a halt (or maybe the truck did?), lightning crackling at his heels, sizzling along his skin. His breath heaved. When had it come smoothly? He could not remember.

Three surprised faces, a familiar star in the constellation. He had passed this marker before. He must not be free. He must be back at start of the track. Again. Again again. He heard stars singing in his ears.

He felt himself sway and it was dark.


End file.
